Dire warnings; Hospitals hitting capacity

CIBOLA COUNTY, N.M. — Cibola County has eclipsed 800 COVID-19 cases, seeing a 16.1 percent spike in cases since Tuesday of last week. Cibola has seen a 12 percent increase of deaths, bringing the county’s death total to 28.

There were 806 cases in Cibola County as Monday, Nov. 9. There have been 366 recoveries which means there are 440 active cases of COVID-19 in the county.

New Mexico has seen 13 days of record setting COVID-19 growth across the state, causing state leaders to sound the alarm.

No new restrictions

Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham held a press conference on November 5 to discuss the state’s management of COVID-19, where she warned citizens across the state that it’s too late to better for November, but that right now we can do better and save December.

Right now, New Mexico is “running between the middle and worst-case scenario,” New Mexico Secretary of Human Services Department Dr. David Scrase said.

Scrase predicted New Mexico will likely see 13 deaths a day from COVID-19.

The current death total from COVID-19 is not accurate, Dr. Scrase warned, explaining that the current death total is lagging behind the system, and that this is the case with most operations put in place by the governor’s office, from contract tracing to testing there are so many COVID-19 positive test results and COVID-related deaths occurring that the responders cannot keep up. This COVID-19 delay will be explored further into the story.

“Our course is set for the next few weeks in New Mexico,” said Dr. Scrase who explained that if New Mexicans buckle down and begin wearing masks and social distancing again, the disease can be brought back under control.

Despite the dire warning from state officials, no new restrictions were imposed. Governor Lujan Grisham said that if things do not change then tougher restrictions may have to be reimplemented.

“You cannot get close to other humans, if you are within six feet of another New Mexican you are too close,” Governor Lujan Grisham said.

The governor warned that New Mexicans need to adhere to COVID-safe practices, wearing a mask, social distancing and staying at home are key to keeping people safe.

“I want to be very clean `staying home’ does not mean spending time at a friend or family member’s home that is not your own. It means not giving the virus an opportunity to spread. It means minimizing any unnecessary interactions. It means staying home, in your own home,” the governor clarified in a tweet on Nov. 9.

Fatalities

“Eighty percent of us that need to go into a hospital don’t have COVID, but this effects all of us,” Dr. Scrase said, explaining that hospitals are beginning to be overfilled with patients and there are not required staff to help everyone. To try an alleviate issues within hospitals the state established a series of hub hospitals across New Mexico but according to the secretary, there have been times where even the hub hospitals have been overwhelmed.

Dr. Scrase said that “17.3 percent of people who go to a hospital with COVID die,” and explained that men have a higher chance of dying from the disease than women. He added that more research is necessary to find out why.

Scrase explained that a person who dies from COVID-19 does not get logged as a COVID death until the death certificate has been certified.

Cibola County has recorded, as of press time, 28 deaths.

Hospitals at capacity

Dr. Scrase said that the reason COVID-safe practices must be followed is to not overwhelm the hospitals.

New Mexico was transporting several of its COVID-19 patients to Texas, until mid-October when the state stopped accepting patients from out-of-state because they were running out of beds and other supplies. COVID-19 hospitalizations have increased 95 percent in a two-week span, according to data from the New Mexico Department of Health.

To help alleviate pressure on hospitals, especially the smaller hospitals, New Mexico established hub hospitals. It was not long before these hub hospitals were nearing capacity, recently going over capacity, Dr. Scrase explained.

New Mexico does not have a lot of general hospital beds, being 25 percent lower than the national average for access to general hospital beds.

New Mexico has even fewer Intensive Care Unit beds, at 31 percent lower than the national average, according to Dr. Scrase.

To help with the flow of patients, Scrase said that the state established a statewide hospital network to identify when a hospital is nearing capacity and find a way to transfer patients. Scrase explained that in April the state was mostly transferring patients from the Northwest, from the counties of San Juan, McKinley, and Cibola, therefore the hospitals were not in a dire situation like the are now. The problem, Dr. Scrase explained, is that it is not just the northwestern region that is overflowing with COVID-19 patients, the whole state is suffering now.

More and more people are needing ICU beds, Dr. Scrase said, attributing this to the ever-growing COVIDcrisis.

“We’re hitting situations where even hub hospitals are going over their capacity,” Dr. Scrase warned.

“Most ICU beds are full... COVID patients need constant monitoring of their blood oxygen levels.”

Dr. Scrase warned New Mexicans that every bed taken up by a COVID-19 patient is a bed that is not available for a childbirth delivery or cancer treatment.

A lack of beds is not the only issue the state is wrestling with, as hospital admissions breach 49 a day, according to Dr. Scrase. “We expect to run out of hospital beds in a number of days,” is just one of the alarms that is being sounded.

Dr. Johnathan Mariano, University of New Mexico Hospital, said that that there have been massive issues since there are not enough staff to monitor all the COVID-19 patients across the state.

“No single institution can do this,” Dr. Mariano said.

To help with this, 400 travelling nurses from across the country and from Canada are on their way to New Mexico to alleviate some of the stress inside hospitals. All 400 of these travelling nurses are under contract with the state.

Dr. Mariano is assisting Dr. Scrase and the Human Services Department in resurveying every hospital to determine which ones need the staff that they have right now, to move staff from hospital to hospital. This resurvey does not just affect medical centers, but long-term care centers as well. The state is looking for any non-occupied resources to put into the fight until the virus can be brought back under control.

The state is hoping that a new call from the governor will fill more healthcare positions; Governor Lujan Grisham is calling on all retired and inactive medical professionals to return to work. This is alongside the travelling nurses and, as additional efforts, the governor is trying to pull medical resources from the New Mexico Federal Reserve Corps. and from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Lack of staff, not beds, is the major issue, Dr. Scrase said.

“[A] woman deserves a bed to have a baby; a cancer patient deserves a bed for their treatment... All of our beds are full across the country. The US is having a collapse of the ability to maintain this disease... If we don’t see a shift... there will be no other options and there will be a public health order,” Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham said.